


Apparition No. 12

by krabapple



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krabapple/pseuds/krabapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus Lupin: Dumbledore's (Reluctant) Man</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apparition No. 12

**Author's Note:**

> For musesfool who posted Thea Gilmore's song _Apparition No. 12_ in her journal and then said someone should write that, it seems like a Remus/Sirius song to me. This is probably not what you were thinking, as it is more Remus than anything else, but I tried. The song quoted in italics is, of course, _Apparition No. 12_.
> 
> Written in 2005, prior to HBP and DH.

_Hey now my red clouds're rolling in  
To catalogue and number every stone cold dream  
And I've seen Sal thumbing his way up to the stars  
I've seen angels in the shooting galleries  
And heroes in the bars_

 

Remus Lupin has always taken what he could get. Only once in his life has that ever made him happy.

That one time, one time, when he decided to let in three mismatched misfits, that one time has lead to every single moment of any real happiness Remus has ever had. He remembers James and Sirius wrestling for dominance before they realized they could be much more together than either of them could be separately. He remembers how he and Peter had watched the fighting, and later the eventual truce, and even later the victory parades, first with wary attentiveness and then with acceptance.

That one time had led to food fights in the Great Hall and shared socks and three animagi and one bloody nose (James' at the fist of Peter, of all people). That one time had lead to Sirius and unlearning everything Remus had ever known about life, had unwound the string around the axis of the world.

Of course, that one time has also led to almost everything that has ever made Remus unhappy. Almost everything.

But thanks to Fenrir Greyback, not absolutely everything.

It has even led to this moment, right now, this, sitting at the kitchen table in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, a place he had never even visited before he came here this summer. Dumbledore has revived the Order of the Phoenix, and they are holding a meeting now, Mad-Eye Moody doing most of the talking (and arguing) with Dumbledore about how to get Harry here. Brooms, it seems, is the compromise, though that feels incredibly visible to Remus. He does agree with Dumbledore (who had been having a moment of relative emotional clarity at the time), however, that Harry would probably not appreciate a Portkey right now.

Considering where the last Portkey Harry had touched led him, Remus does not think another would be welcome.

Remus still has not quite reckoned how Apparition was taken out of the running as a means of viable transportation, but he suspects that it has something to do with the spells and wards Dumbledore and Moody had been doing earlier in the day, and that they had ultimately needed Sirius to do, as the House would not respond to any ward not cast by a Black.

So Remus had spent the prior afternoon watching Sirius perfect spells that would help keep him imprisoned. It was like asking a man sentenced to a hanging to tie his own noose, please, if he would.

But Sirius had.

Sirius has taken what he could get, too, and Remus watches him now, with his full attention, not even bothering with subtleties. Sirius looks fine, though he does not say anything, does not interrupt Dumbledore and Moody, occasionally Arthur.

Remus wishes James were still alive and could take Sirius out to the pub. Just two heroes, in a bar.

Instead, Sirius catches Remus' eye, just a slight turn of his head to the left, and Remus wonders how much firewhiskey they have upstairs, for later.

Fucking brooms.

 

 _I've seen a death warrant out on the moon  
I saw what happened when the prophet spoke too soon  
And I heard the radio sneeze into the evening  
And all the bat-squeak singers selling fake hope to the sleeping_

 

When they were seventeen, Sirius had presented Remus with a piece of parchment. He had done so in his usual, and therefore elaborate, way, practically serenading Remus on the way to supper. On the parchment, elaborately drawn (during Transfiguration, Remus suspected) was a replica of the old death warrants the Ministry used to issue in the name of dark wizards--which the Ministry had not done since the eighteenth century, until it had done so the day before with a half a dozen wizards, self-named Death Eaters--made out with The Moon in the place where the name of the wizard should be. At the time Remus had accepted the parchment, smiled, and thought to ask himself when, at any point in their Hogwarts Career, Sirius had ever paid attention in History of Magic.

Even at thirty-five Remus shakes uncontrollably the night after the full moon. Sirius stretches out on the bed next to him, watching Remus with wide, worried eyes, but Remus cannot help it, and shakes and shakes and shakes, the Change taking its toll, even with the Wolfsbane.

Sirius does not know what to do, and Remus does not know how to help him, not this time, when it means helping himself. Remus closes his eyes so he won't have to see Sirius' helpless expression, an expression Remus has seen on Sirius' face exactly once before, when Dumbledore had told them James and Lily and Harry would not be safe under anything except the Fidelius Charm.

But Dumbledore had assured them that the Charm would protect the Potters, and Remus remembered Sirius' expression had eased. Remus can think of nothing to ease Sirius' helplessness now.

The sound of a radio drifts into the room from somewhere in the house, though Harry will not be there until tomorrow. It is classical music, Muggle, possibly Beethoven if Remus remembers correctly, and Remus has the sense of mind, if not of his body, to guess from the music that the radio owner is Hermione, or possibly Arthur who loves all things Muggle, even their music.

Sirius suddenly starts to breathe faster, and without opening his eyes Remus realizes that he is now in the company of Padfoot. Padfoot budges up against Remus, placing his head on Remus' belly. Remus still cannot master his hand, his arm, enough to lift his fingers to pet the dog, to place his palm on Padfoot's smooth head, and he continues to shake, keeping his eyes closed and the moon out of his minds' eye, Sirius' old parchment taking its place instead.

 

 _I've seen the cover up of cold hard facts  
Burning acid holes in the magazine racks  
I saw Jenny have a baby in the street  
Where they're playing blind mans bluff between the dying and the concrete_

 

Remus had canceled his subscription to The Daily Prophet early in the summer, when it became clear exactly what the Ministry's official stance on Voldemort would be, but Hermione receives a subscription, and she reads it faithfully every day. Remus has the sense not to tell her she can't receive the paper, but it is a close thing. Remus is used to the Ministry's attitude, and is not surprised that they are taking the road they are. The Ministry is especially good at denial, in all things, and Remus does not particularly care what the Ministry and the Prophet think, but he knows Harry does, and that is enough to make Remus hide the paper if Hermione happens to leave it out in plain view.

One day Remus walks into the kitchen to see Sirius with the paper, carefully doing the crossword, which checks Remus for a minute, as it was Peter who was the crossword fiend among their group. If only they had realized what a real puzzle Peter himself was, they all probably would have been better off.

Remus gets a cup of coffee, temporarily relieved of cleaning duty by Molly, and leans over Sirius' shoulder. He doesn't know whether to smile or frown when he realizes that Sirius is not actually doing the crossword, merely writing down pertinent words in the spaces that hold them. _Voldemort_ , _Potter_ , _madman_ , _Malfoy_ , _Harry_ , _prison_ , _rat_ and _Firebolt_ all intersect at some point, and it is like some sort of crude representation of Sirius' mind. Remus picks out the right spaces and plucks the quill from Sirius' fingers, leaning over Sirius' shoulder to write _godfather_ , _friend_ and _dog_.

Sirius twists his head enough to peer up at Remus, and Remus is surprised to see a smile on Sirius' face.

"I'm surprised you didn't write 'love' and then draw hearts all over the empty spaces, Moony," Sirius drawls.

"Taking things for granted?" Remus teases, grabbing Sirius by the chin and taking the opportunity to scrawl _Padfoot_ in ink across Sirius' forehead. Sirius frowns in an exaggerated fashion and rubs at his forehead, smearing the ink but not managing to wipe it away.

Remus laughs. "You don't even know what I wrote," he says.

Sirius actually sticks out his tongue at that, right as Ginny walks into the room. Ginny giggles and Remus shoots her a smile.

Remus leans back over and adds _wanker_ to the crossword before helping Ginny search for more Doxy solution.

Sirius wears the word Padfoot on his forehead until the end of dinner, when Molly finally magics it off.

 

 _I've seen a paper corpse holing up a doorway  
I heard the lonely voices singing "yeah I did it your way"  
And I held the future up to a looking glass  
It bears a striking resemblance  
To the embers of the past_

 

Sirius is standing in the doorway, leaning more heavily than he should upon the frame, Remus notices. He has gone pale since the children went back to school and most of the Order back to work, Remus included, after the Christmas hols. The fire in the library hearth does little to add color to Sirius' face or his hands. Sirius doesn't say anything, but Remus puts down his quill and the parchment he is writing to update Dumbledore on the werewolf pack he just spent two weeks visiting in Ireland.

Sirius comes and sits on the floor in front of Remus' chair and rests the back of his head against the cushion, closing his eyes and tilting his throat. Remus' hand automatically comes down to run fingers through Sirius' hair, petting him in human form.

Remus doesn't ask what brought this on, doesn't question it, just lets his fingers roam across Sirius' scalp, his crown, the nape of his neck.

Eventually Sirius says, "Dumbledore."

Remus isn't sure what that means, but lets it go, watching the orange sections of the fire. "Just reporting in."

"He'll send you out again."

Remus shrugs.

"It's not fair."

Remus shrugs again. "Not fair to me, or to you?"

"Both," Sirius replies immediately, and Remus has to grant him his honesty. His fingers trail across Sirius' neck, below the collar of his Oxford.

"What if we didn't do things his way?" Sirius suddenly asks. "Don't you sometimes wonder if all this plotting is going to win us the battle but lose us the war? We were losing the first time."

"We have Harry," Remus says, and knows immediately it is the wrong thing to say, to think, much less to utter.

Sirius' face goes a little dark, the only color Remus has seen on him in weeks outside of their bed. "Bully for us."

"That's not . . ."

"I know what you meant, Remus. Doesn't the future look awfully familiar to you sometimes? Because we lived it once already?" Sirius asks.

"Because you worry Harry will end up just as dead as James?" Remus says, and Sirius draws a sharp breath underneath his fingers.

"Because I worry I won't be able to protect him, just like I didn't protect James."

Remus sighs; nothing he can say, has said, has changed Sirius' mind about James.

"Dumbledore couldn't save them, either," Sirius finally says. "What if he can't save Harry, too? What if, to change things, we do things Dumbledore doesn't want us to do?"

Remus doesn't answer right away, not quite trusting himself. There are so many things he would do differently, if given the chance, but he owes so much to Dumbledore he finds the possibility of not following instructions utterly terrifying, and his heart skips in response to his thoughts.

"What if? What if we told Harry about the prophecy, about what Voldemort is after? What if I left the house to go to the market? To go to the shore? To go to Italy? What if you came with me? What if you never had to talk to another werewolf again? What if we took Harry with us?"

"What if is a dangerous question to ask, Sirius," Remus says.

"I know. That's why it has to be asked."

"So why don't you answer it? Why do you stay? Why don't you go abroad? Some place tropical?" The wind howls outside, herald of a cold February.

"Harry," Sirius says quickly. "I also thought it might be nice to settle down. After those years on the run, I mean. Not have to be Padfoot all the time, or live in caves, or eat rats. Nice to have a bed for a change."

Remus blows out a breath. "Those things aren't nice anymore?"

To Remus' surprise, Sirius smiles. "The bed part is still nice."

Remus smiles, too. "I can only imagine."

"Don't imagine, Moony, you were there," Sirius says, and Remus, a grown man, blushes.

"Am there," Remus corrects. "I'm not going anywhere, if that's the other what if you're not asking."

"Why not? Remus, you don't have to be a part of this."

"Just because James and Lily didn't name me godfather doesn't mean I'm not a part of this."

"I didn't mean . . ."

"I know what you meant."

"I meant me."

"I know."

"You could live anywhere, Remus."

Remus snorts. "On the salary I pull from the Order?" he asks, which they both know is none.

"You have your family's house."

"Yes."

"But you live here."

"If you want me to say I live here for you, I'll say it, though you should know it already," Remus says.

"Sometimes I need for you to say it," Sirius replies.

"All right," Remus agrees. "Sirius, I live here for you. I stay here for you. I do it gladly, freely, willingly. I will not leave, not so long as you are here, not ever."

After that, they sit in silence for a long time, both of them watching the fire, Remus' hand still moving slowly through Sirius' hair.

 

 _I've seen the chorus-girls the ribbon and the rot  
Seen electoral debates on the glass-rim of a whiskey shot  
And I caught the glimmer in a hurricanes eye  
I've seen these AK-47s with their noses to the sky_

 

Remus is, predictably, not there when the floo call comes in. Where he is, instead, is at the Hog's Head, where he is scheduled to meet Fenrir Greyback. So far Greyback is late, and Remus has probably had one whiskey shot too many, though the whiskey turns his stomach far less than even the thought of Greyback does. Remus is eying his fourth shot of whiskey, the firelight bouncing off the glass-rim in small slivers of blue and gold, when the door opens to admit, of all people, Severus Snape.

Remus looks up, but before he can even open his mouth, Severus is upon him. "We have to go, now," Snape says, and it's an order. Remus is too shocked to reprimand the man for his abrupt tone, and he is too relieved not to have to see Greyback that he is on his feet at once.

"What . . ." Remus starts, but before he can finish he is being hustled through the pub, and they almost run straight into a pair of young women with green ribbon in their hair.

Severus still has hold of Remus' arm by the time they get outside, and when he raises his wand arm, Remus is struck by the suddenly clarity that Severus is about to Apparate the both of them. Remus jerks his arm out of Snape's grip.

"What the hell is going on here?" Remus manages to ask and gets a scowl for his answer.

"What is going on here is that your friend's godson has gotten or is about to get himself in more trouble than even he knows what to do with." Only Snape could simultaneously drawl and spit out a sentence like that.

"Harry?" Remus asks, his heart suddenly in his throat.

"Mr. Potter seems to be under the impression that the dark lord absconded with his godfather, and is holding him at the Department of Mysteries."

"Sirius?" Remus thinks back furiously, even though he left Grimmauld Place no more than an hour and a half ago. "But Sirius was upstairs when I . . ."

"Yes, Lupin, it is a _trap_ ," Snape says. "The Order is to go to the Department of Mysteries to bail out Mr. Potter and his friends." Snape pauses. "Dumbledore's orders."

Remus blinks, still thinking rapidly; he knows Sirius. "You go to the Ministry. I'm going home first."

"Lupin . . ."

"I'll be there," Remus snaps. "I'll be there." And before Snape can say another word, he is already gone.

Remus Apparates to Number Twelve, and though the trip is almost instantaneous, Remus' heart refuses to leave his throat.

Upon his arrival, Remus finds just what he expects: the house is empty, and Sirius is gone.

 

 _I smelled the ghosts of the ashes and the orchids  
I've got promises tattooed on the insides of my eyelids  
And I'll be watching when the Richter reaches 10  
I bled by these weapons babe and now I'm one of them._

 

There is no funeral, no memorial service. There is no body, but even if there had been, Remus doesn't think there would have been a service. Sometimes he thinks, more than just a little bitter, that Dumbledore would have left him to dig a hole the garden to heave the body into had there been one.

James and Lily had orchids at their funeral. Remus was the one who ordered them.

Harry will go back to the Dursleys. At least Remus will see him before he goes.

Remus sits now in an armchair on the opposite side of Dumbledore's desk. The Headmaster is away, performing some school function or another, but Minerva had assured Remus that Dumbledore would return to give Remus some instructions regarding Harry's return to Privet Drive, and his task after that is complete.

While he waits, Remus closes his eyes, though all he sees on the backs of his eyelids are the remains of his life, of Sirius' life, of _I will not leave, not so long as you are here, not ever_ , of _I love you_ , of _Nothing bad could ever happen to us_ , of _Of course you can attend, like any other student, Mr. Lupin_. Remus hates to keep his eyes closed, but he hates them open even more.

He does open them when Dumbledore enters, however. Predictably, Dumbledore takes the seat behind his desk, but he does not offer Remus anything: not a lemon sherbert, not a biscuit, not some tea. Dumbledore seems to be watching Remus carefully, measuring him. He finally starts with, "Remus. Sirius was . . ." but he has the sense to stop speaking when Remus raises a hand to stop him.

"Sirius was your weapon," Remus says. "And so am I."

He pauses.

"What do you want me to do?"


End file.
